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[crashryan]

I always find myself reading off-the-wall stuff. This time it's CLARA VAUGHAN by Richard Doddridge Blackmore. Today Blackmore is remembered, if at all, for Lorna Doone, which you'll find condensed in the Thriller Picture Library. Clara Vaughan, from 1864, was his first novel. To my surprise it kept me interested all the way to the end.

I say "to my surprise" because the book is a laundry list of things I hate in a novel: (1) It is a classic three-volume novel, running well over a thousand pages; (2) It contains a huge section in which the novel screeches to a halt while one of the characters engages in a 200-page recounting of his own separate adventures; (3) It is obsessed with shady relatives, questionable ancestry and "proper" inheritance; (4) Many characters speak in elaborately spelt-out accents; and (5) It contains swarthy, hot-blooded Corsicans. Now that I reread that description it sounds like an issue of Thriller Picture Library crossed with an issue of Schoolgirls' Picture Library. Maybe that's why I stuck around for the end. Anyway, the story recounts the adventures of Clara, who at age ten saw her father murdered by a mysterious someone. She grows up obsessed with finding his killer. Her prime suspect is a wayward uncle. Over the course of the novel she experiences rags and riches, an impossible romance, hairbreadth escapes, clashes with inscrutable enemies, and the love of a good dog. All very mid-19th-century, yet very involving.

As a storyteller Blackmore deserves applause for one thing. Right about the time the murderer's identity becomes clear to the reader, Clara figures it out too, and her quest switches from identifying the killer to proving her suspicions and bringing the bounder to justice. If you've ever read 19th-century novels you'll appreciate how refreshing this was. Oddly, to me the most memorable aspect of the novel wasn't the story but the author's descriptions of northern England. Much of the novel is set in Devonshire. Blackmore paints the landscape, the weather, and the people in such loving detail that you can feel the breeze and see the sun shining through the trees. The only down side is his insistence on reproducing phonetically long speeches in the local dialect. It may honor its subjects but it's damned near impossible to read.

The more I think of it the more I believe this enormous novel would have condensed nicely into a great Thriller Picture Library.

[crashryan]

As long as I'm at it, here's another off-the-wall novel: The Bellamy Trial (1927) by Frances Noyes Hart. It's been suggested that this is the first "courtroom procedural" novel (my term) of the sort that Erle Stanley Gardner made famous. I wouldn't be surprised to find that ESG had this book in mind when he was developing Perry Mason.

The novel follows an eight-day murder trial. A society woman has been killed. Her husband and another woman are accused of the crime. Each day of the trial is treated in a separate chapter consisting mostly of the arguments presented by the prosecuting and defense attorneys. The trial is big news so the courtroom is packed with curious citizens and drama-hungry reporters. Among them are a female reporter on her first murder case and a male reporter who has seen plenty of them. Their brief conversations provide us with background about the trial participants so we better understand the context.

With its long stretches of back-and-forth dialogue the book reads like a Perry Mason TV show. In fact, although neither attorney is particularly sympathetic, I still heard the voices of Raymond Burr and William Talman in many of the exchanges. At one point an attorney even labels his opponent's argument "incompetent, immaterial, and irrelevant"! The author plays fair with the reader, laying out the clues clearly and distributing the red herrings with care. While the trial doesn't end with a dramatic witness-stand admission of guilt, its conclusion is satisfying and matches the facts.

All in all this was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. The author felt the need to develop an irrelevant (and immaterial and incompetent?)  romance between the reporters but it's kept on the sidelines and doesn't hamper enjoyment of the story. If you like Perry Mason-style mysteries you might enjoy this book as I did.

[Andrew999]

Sounds good - I'll read it.

Out of copyright worldwide and available for free here:

https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20120315

[Andrew999]

Sounds winner.

Available here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41020

I'm a fan of Victorian literature - Wilkie Collins is a particular favourite, so I'll give Clara a go. I'm not sure about the sun shining through the trees in Devon. I lived there for many years - I don't recall the rain stopped once.

[crashryan]

It's been a long time since I read Vittorio Giardino's graphic novels about Max Fridman. I liked them immensely, both for art and story. Lately I ran across Vacances Fatales (Fatal Vacations), a short story collection published in the early 1990s. The book apparently appeared first in Italy, but I read the French version from Casterman. It's a set of six stories set in various vacation spots, each featuring complicated personal intrigues and mysteries with an ironical conclusion. Each tale is prefaced by Giardino's description about how the story idea came to him.

I love Giardino's art. One can see a variety of influences from ligne claire and Giraud to Tardi and Pratt. He imitates none of them; Giardino is a fully-realized artist with a gift for believable characters and evocative backgrounds. There's something to savor in every panel.

The first four stories didn't do much for me. They're beautifully drawn, of course, and readable, but they're somewhat shallow tales of sexual intrigue among the beautiful people and the ironic endings are too pat. That all changes for the last two stories. These are mysteries, longer and deeper than the previous anecdotes.

In the first, "La Decouverte de Paris" ("The Discovery of Paris"), a painter approaching middle age revisits his old stomping ground and renews old acquaintances only to be dragged into an illegal plot to sell a priceless Giorgione painting believed to have been lost during the War. it's a very satisfying story with a great ending.

The last story, "La Troisieme Verite" ("The Third Truth") is equally engrossing. The widow of a man who translates the books of a successful novelist believes her husband's accidental death was murder. She enlists the aid of her husband's lawyer--who is also her lover--to dig up the truth. This was Giardino's first time working with a "scenarist." From his description the two worked closely together and had a great time. The result is a nicely crafted tale of shifting loyalties and sudden violence.

Definitely recommended.

[The Australian Panther]

Lately, courtesy of my local libraries, I have been reading some of the works of Johnny D Boggs. Boggs is a writer of Westerns which are 'Faction', fictional accounts of factual history. I love readable books about the American West. He is a relatively new writer, his first Spur award, for a short story, was in 2002.
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/johnny-d-boggs/
But, boy, can he write!
I've read, 'The Kansas City Cowboys' (about a baseball team' and 'Hard Way out of Hell - the confessions of Cole Younger' - (About the James Gang if you didn't know the connection) and am currently at the end of  "Ghost Legion'
If you think the USA is a politically confusing and volatile place today, read this about the Battle of Kings Mountain in the 1780s and you will come to the conclusion that in some ways nothing has changed. 

In this tale set during the War for Independence, two intriguing stories emerge. One is of a black freedman, Stuart Brodie. On his return from the war, he finds his brother lynched and his tavern in the backcountry of South Carolina burnt to the ground. Knowing that the guilty party was allied with the Colonial Patriots, he joins the British Army to exact his revenge. The other story is of an abused wife, Marty, who is raped by her husband and his friend and left to recover alone. While dressed in men's clothing she is mistaken for a man and promptly uses this to her advantage to join the Colonial forces.

Recommended.
While writing this, I was thinking that his books would make great movies and wondered if he had already achieved that.
IMDB credits Johnny D Boggs as the writer for the semi- documentary series, Gunfighters.   
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2617818393?ref_=nm_rvd_vi_1
Looks Good!

Cheers! 

[crashryan]

Continuing along my French shelf I finally got around to reading Marcel Labrume by Attilio Micheluzzi (1980). I've read a fair amount of Micheluzzi. The guy pumped out a lot of material, writing and drawing adventure stories grounded in historical events in exotic locales. He especially liked the 1930s, when the world was sliding inexorably toward World War II.

Marcel Labrume is a sort of Bogart character living somewhere in what today is Syria. In 1940 Syria and much of the surrounding territory, then called the Levant, was administered by the French. France was run by the Vichy government, collaborators with Hitler's Germany. German influence was building in the Levant, leading to complicated behind-the-scenes clashes between Germans, Vichy supporters, and supporters of exiled General Charles DeGaulle--not to mention all the various ethnic and religious groups we hear about today, Alaouites, Maronites, Druse, Zionists, none of whom were happy with European occupation of their land.

Into this mess flies Labrume's onetime lover, rich Hollywood aviatrix Carole Gibson, on a secret mission to transport a Jewish activist safely to a friendly country so he can reveal unpleasant truths about Nazi atrocities. Labrume is dragged into this mess, pushing back against Gestapo officer Steiner and an array of characters both savory and un. Of course he must also deal with his soured relationship with Carole.

I admire Micheluzzi's work, but not with the same enthusiasm I have for Vittorio Giardino. There's a certain clinical quality to his stories. They're interesting, well-researched and well-plotted, but I always get the feeling that we're seeing the story held at arm's length. We're never quite close enough to the characters to get to know them. Micheluzzi's storytelling style is mostly to blame for this. While most of the action is shown by art and dialogue, there are a fair number of narrative captions (fortunately not overly many and not overly long). The captions are Labrume's inner monologues. They drift in time from past to present and even into the future. Labrume doesn't just explain the action, he speculates about what characters are thinking and chides himself for his shortcomings. It's as if Lebrume is watching himself in a movie and talking to the screen. "Ah, Labrume, you were such a fool." "So it would be easy, eh? But you didn't know about..." and that sort of thing. Micheluzzi has used this gimmick in many stories. At least it's not as bad here as in Rosso Stenton, in which an unidentified narrator speaks directly to the hero--and the hero replies!

Micheluzzi's artwork is amazing. He usually works in black-and-white, and his use of dramatic shadows and abstract textures is unlike anyone else's. Some of his compositions--a worm's eye view of a chain link fence, a backlit semi-silhouette of Labrume crouching in a doorway--are magnificent in their mixing of the real and the abstract. His use of cast shadows is equally bold. Sometimes, as in nightclub scenes, the background is dominated by a completely abstract pattern that somehow fits the scene perfectly.

The downside is that Micheluzzi sometimes gets too clever and the resulting image is impossible to figure out. He likes elliptical storytelling and often suggests something rather than showing it. Unfortunately this can land him in trouble. In comparing the original Italian and the translated French versions of the story I found that new dialogue had been written to clarify one perplexing, and very important, scene. A final complaint is that while his supporting characters represent a wide variety of interesting types, sometimes it's hard to tell the bad guys apart.

I understand there was a sequel, which I haven't seen. I'd give this book a qualified "recommended." You may have to reread a couple of scenes to get what's going on.

[Captain Audio]

Finished the Silmarillion and the Hobbit. Started the Fellowship of the Ring and am as far in as the encounter at Weather Top and Frodo's wound. The broken tip of the Morgul blade reminds me of a shrapnel wound.

Continuing along my French shelf I finally got around to reading Marcel Labrume by Attilio Micheluzzi (1980). I've read a fair amount of Micheluzzi. The guy pumped out a lot of material, writing and drawing adventure stories grounded in historical events in exotic locales. He especially liked the 1930s, when the world was sliding inexorably toward World War II.

Has he written anything on the "Gran Chaco War"?
I've only run across a few articles on weaponry of the time which mention this war as a prelude to the carnage of WW2.
I once read a early Superman story in which Clark Kent, before appearing as Superman, had served in combat in a war similar to this. When he realized he himself was invulnerable to gunfire he decided he must never take a human life in battle no matter how noble the cause and never use deadly force against criminals.

[crashryan]

 Captain A, have you ever read Philip Wylie's Gladiator, a book that had a strong influence on Superman? The short form is that Hugo Danner was raised by a scientist father to have superhuman abilities. He spends the book trying to use his powers for good and failing. When Danner enlists to fight in WWI he goes berserk during a particulary awful battle and winds up tearing hundreds of enemy soldiers to bits. That sort of puts him off the idea of being a super soldier.

[Captain Audio]

Captain A, have you ever read Philip Wylie's Gladiator, a book that had a strong influence on Superman?

Never heard of it but will certainly look it up.

[Andrew999]

Thanks for the heads-up over these - Vittorio Giardino looks pretty much my cup of tea - Sam Pezzo and Max Fridman look like the kind of characters I will enjoy.

[The Australian Panther]

Currently Reading,
?Buck Peters, Ranchman. A Hopalong Cassidy Novel?
Clarence E. Mulford 1912.
Thanks to my local library.
From the Dust Jacket, ?Bill ?Hopalong? Cassidy, [is] an illiterate, tobacco-chewing, hard drinking, able-swearing son of the Old West.?
If you are only familiar with Hopalong from the films, Mulford?s novels will come as a revelation.
This one, in fact, doesn't star Hopalong, but his friends Tex and Buck.   
He loved word-games and language. And he depicts Cowboys as a group of uneducated but intelligent men who speak their own language and revel in it. If you understand, you are identified as someone to take seriously, if you don?t you are instantly identified as an outsider. In places I am reminded of James Joyce.
Extract: -
?Tex? arrives at the Ranch of the title, to work with his friend Buck.
At the beginning, he is talking to his Horse.
He is met by ?Dirty? who introduces him to the Ranch Hands.
[ ?Ha! By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way bums!? He had turned to cross the Jill and saw Pop Snow basking in the failing sunlight. ??Why-Not? ? well, Why not? I will!??
?Come a long way stranger?? Asked Dirty, his gaze wandering over the tell-tale mud. He had come the wrong way for profit, but Dirty always asked, on Principle: he hated to get out of practice.
Tex swung his right leg over the Pony?s neck and sat sideways, looking indolently at the pickled specimen who sat insolently regarding him.
?Plucked from a branch of the Mussel Shell,? murmured Tex, ?When time was young?; and them drawled, ?Tolerable, tolerable, been a-comin? thirty year, Just about.?
Dirty looked at him with frank disgust, spat carefully, and turning on his seat no more than was absolutely necessary, stuck his head in at the open door and yelled, ?Hey Boys! Come on out and meet Mr Comin? Thirty. Comin? is bashful ?bout drinkin with strangers, so get acquaint.? ]
If, like me you are a lover of language, you will love Mulford. 

Cheers!                       

[The Australian Panther]

Find of the week.
Newsagents [Paper Shops] in OZ often get sent things they don't order and sometimes there are only a few copies so only a few shops get certain items. We get a certain amount of British mags and books which are produced originally for the English market.
Wandered into one shop  - in another town and found, 'THE DALEKS - The ultimate collectors' edition of the classic 1960s strip.'
These were originally published in TV CENTURY 21,  which was a mag dedicated to strips about Gerry Anderson's properties. Complicated story as to why they ran a Dalek strip, but they could only do it if they made no mention at all of Dr Who.
Gerry Anderson, ' I suppose the thing that attracted me to the Daleks was jealousy. I was making films with puppets. If we wanted to make a Robot it was very, very difficult - if not impossible - to make a convincing Robot with a puppet. The puppets couldn't walk anyway, how on earth could we get them to walk like a robot? Then along came the Daleks. the Daleks were totally superior.' 
Terry Nation did some of the scripts. Richard Jennings, Eric Eden and Ron Turner did the art.
Published by Panini Magazines and BBC. Beautifully restored. The problem tho, is that there is no clear numerical list to work out which artist did which strips. Ron Turner's work is to the end of the run but the other two were no slouches.
Some of you in the UK will have this or know of it.
And I'm sure there are scans of this material in existence. But if you like gorgeous art, this is worthwhile.
I will take my time reading this, I find the UK one page weekly format slows my reading down.
The stories don't flow like a US style comic.
Cheers!         
           

[Andrew999]

I loved the Daleks.

As children, we used to walk up and down the playground with our arms stretched out rigid in front of us yelling, "Ex-ter-mi-nate Ex-ter-mi-NATE" It was strangely satisfying.

[Captain Audio]

I loved the Daleks.

As children, we used to walk up and down the playground with our arms stretched out rigid in front of us yelling, "Ex-ter-mi-nate Ex-ter-mi-NATE" It was strangely satisfying.

If I ran a large business all the security guards would have to wear cyberman armor. All the robotic mail delivery  would be Daleks.
If fired one of the Daleks would go to your desk and shrilly proclaim "you are TER-MI-NATED".

[The Australian Panther]

Courtesy of my local library, I am knee deep in 'The Lost and the Dammed' by Olivier Norkek. I am partial to Noir and Noirish fiction. This is a French police procedural that has been very expertly translated. His first book available in English, but he has released 6 in France.
Norkek is an ex-polce officer and it shows. He was also one of the creators of the French TV series, SPIRAL which comes highly recommended, although I have not got around to watching it. I'll have to rectify that.
Olivier Norek
https://www.fantasticfiction.com/n/olivier-norek/

2015 Drama Series Winner, Engrenages (Spiral)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcTvqSUyles&list=PLNUmV8Vc0hEHW903BQe0mG1NzmcUpUEfj&index=5

Cheers!       

[ComicMike]

I was very lucky, because I got the first volume "They Drew as They Pleased" (Hidden Art of Disney's Golden Age - The 1930s) used, but in very good condition for only 20 Euro. I hope, that at some point I can get the other five books in this series at such a low price too. 

[Robb_K]

Continuing along my French shelf I finally got around to reading Marcel Labrume by Attilio Micheluzzi (1980). I've read a fair amount of Micheluzzi. The guy pumped out a lot of material, writing and drawing adventure stories grounded in historical events in exotic locales. He especially liked the 1930s, when the world was sliding inexorably toward World War II.

Marcel Labrume is a sort of Bogart character living somewhere in what today is Syria. In 1940 Syria and much of the surrounding territory, then called the Levant, was administered by the French. France was run by the Vichy government, collaborators with Hitler's Germany. German influence was building in the Levant, leading to complicated behind-the-scenes clashes between Germans, Vichy supporters, and supporters of exiled General Charles DeGaulle--not to mention all the various ethnic and religious groups we hear about today, Alaouites, Maronites, Druse, Zionists, none of whom were happy with European occupation of their land.

Into this mess flies Labrume's onetime lover, rich Hollywood aviatrix Carole Gibson, on a secret mission to transport a Jewish activist safely to a friendly country so he can reveal unpleasant truths about Nazi atrocities. Labrume is dragged into this mess, pushing back against Gestapo officer Steiner and an array of characters both savory and un. Of course he must also deal with his soured relationship with Carole.

I admire Micheluzzi's work, but not with the same enthusiasm I have for Vittorio Giardino. There's a certain clinical quality to his stories. They're interesting, well-researched and well-plotted, but I always get the feeling that we're seeing the story held at arm's length. We're never quite close enough to the characters to get to know them. Micheluzzi's storytelling style is mostly to blame for this. While most of the action is shown by art and dialogue, there are a fair number of narrative captions (fortunately not overly many and not overly long). The captions are Labrume's inner monologues. They drift in time from past to present and even into the future. Labrume doesn't just explain the action, he speculates about what characters are thinking and chides himself for his shortcomings. It's as if Lebrume is watching himself in a movie and talking to the screen. "Ah, Labrume, you were such a fool." "So it would be easy, eh? But you didn't know about..." and that sort of thing. Micheluzzi has used this gimmick in many stories. At least it's not as bad here as in Rosso Stenton, in which an unidentified narrator speaks directly to the hero--and the hero replies!

Micheluzzi's artwork is amazing. He usually works in black-and-white, and his use of dramatic shadows and abstract textures is unlike anyone else's. Some of his compositions--a worm's eye view of a chain link fence, a backlit semi-silhouette of Labrume crouching in a doorway--are magnificent in their mixing of the real and the abstract. His use of cast shadows is equally bold. Sometimes, as in nightclub scenes, the background is dominated by a completely abstract pattern that somehow fits the scene perfectly.

The downside is that Micheluzzi sometimes gets too clever and the resulting image is impossible to figure out. He likes elliptical storytelling and often suggests something rather than showing it. Unfortunately this can land him in trouble. In comparing the original Italian and the translated French versions of the story I found that new dialogue had been written to clarify one perplexing, and very important, scene. A final complaint is that while his supporting characters represent a wide variety of interesting types, sometimes it's hard to tell the bad guys apart.

I understand there was a sequel, which I haven't seen. I'd give this book a qualified "recommended." You may have to reread a couple of scenes to get what's going on.

Sounds like it has a lot in common with "Casablanca".  And being that half my family was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and I grew just after WWII, up till age 17 with Holocaust survivors living in my house, I am very interested in this book.

[Robb_K]

I was very lucky, because I got the first volume "They Drew as They Pleased" (Hidden Art of Disney's Golden Age - The 1930s) used, but in very good condition for only 20 Euro. I hope, that at some point I can get the other five books in this series at such a low price too. 

WOW!!!  Lucky you!!!  I wish you luck getting the whole series at affordable prices.  It is a wonderful resource and beautiful art to view over and over.

[ComicMike]

Robb, your wishes have already helped! I just discovered the second volume "They Drew as They Pleased Vol. 2 - The Hidden Art of Disney's Musical Years (The 1940s - Part One)" at a Dutch dealer for 20 Euro! Today is a good day!

The many pictures and the amount of information really make these books a treasure trove for everyone.

[Robb_K]

Robb, your wishes have already helped! I just discovered the second volume "They Drew as They Pleased Vol. 2 - The Hidden Art of Disney's Musical Years (The 1940s - Part One)" at a Dutch dealer for 20 Euro! Today is a good day!

The many pictures and the amount of information really make these books a treasure trove for everyone.

Gefeliciteerd! As we say, in Zuid Holland!

[ComicMike]

Gefeliciteerd! As we say, in Zuid Holland!

Dank mien internatschonale Frueend ! 

( As we say in Northern Germany  , in our Low German Language, which I don't speak well, but can understand well. )


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German

[The Australian Panther]

Paw wrote, [In watcha watchin'?]

I'm reading a lot of old British golden age crime.

Love to know what authors you are reading.

I've been educating myself via the Canadian site,
https://www.fadedpage.com/
To name a few - recommended. 
Frank Kane - US pulp
Earl Stanley Gardner - various short stories.
Dornford Yates - UK - the Chandros stories - sort of UK Pulp - whom I love.
Bedford Jones, Henry - Adventure
Elizabeth Daly
E Phillips Oppenheim
Grant Allen
Paul Iselin Wellman   
And they are just the ones who are lesser known.
Quite a lot of better known authors  on there as well.

Cheers!

[paw broon]

As there's been a lot to do writing articles and sampling life now we're under fewer restrictions in Scotland, I missed your reply Panther. Re GA British crime, there is a series out now ftom The British Library and somd of the books are excellent.  Lots of locked room, impossible crines sort of thing. Many very well written and some have highly entertaining character descriptions.  My wife and I have enjoyed stories by George Bellairs, John Bude, Freeman Wills Crofts, E. E. Lora. All with introductions by Martin Edwards.
But I just finished something completely different.  The Left Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix. Set in a version of London and England in the '80's, it's a real  page turner. Unusual for me to read fantasy but thus one, urban fantasy I think it's described as, was rather good.

[The Australian Panther]

I have mentioned Clarence E Mulford before in this thread. Went to talk to my local librarian to congratulate her on her impending retirement. While I was there she had a donation of books to deal with. This happens often and since many of them can't be processed into the Library catalogue they are given away. So I came away with some 1930's Westerns.
One of which was a Hopalong Cassidy book, 'Hopalong Cassidy and the Eagles Brood' [1931]
Mulford's Cassidy bears no resemblance at all to the TV and Movie character.
What makes this book interesting is the plot.
Here tis.
Cassidy and 6 of his acquaintances - all mature Cowboys and gunmen - have previously arranged to meet socially.
While they are together they hear of a gang who has perpetrated an atrocity against a woman and decide to do something about it.
So the 7 of them, 'The Eagles Brood' journey to this obscure town and gradually clean up the town and get rid of the outlaws.
Sound Familiar?
Kurosawa's movie 'Seven Samurai' was the inspiration for '"The Magnificent Seven'.
Whether either Director was familiar with this story I don't know. The plot of 'The Eagles Brood' does not parallel the plot of those two but there are a lot of similarities.
Would make a great film on its own.
Subsequent to the above, it seems that the book was filmed. Well, sort of.
The Eagles Brood - 1935.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDtkwRkrTOQ
The original book could have been filmed by Leone
This could be a Disney film - and 50's Disney at that.
There is no mention of 7 anything in this film. So the only reason for the title of the film would be to tie it to the book.
Some elements of the plot are the same, and the names of some of the characters, but we have a quite different story. I'm thinking the reasons for the changes were - 1/ to make the film 'family friendly' and 2/ The Hays code.
http://www.american-historama.org/1929-1945-depression-ww2-era/hays-code.htm
However, to my surprise, in this early film, Boyd plays a somewhat tougher character than I remember from the 50's TV show.   
Cheers!